We regret to inform you that the Illinois Racing Board has requested that all online wagering providers cease accepting wagers from residents of Illinois. Effective Friday, January 18, our Illinois customers will not be permitted to wager at Xpressbet.com until further notice.

We apologize for the inconvenience this presents and will keep you updated on any progress towards a resolution. We look forward to once again serving your account wagering needs once this situation has been resolved.

Your account will remain active and you will have full access to live video, Pro Shop products, race information, race replays, free daily picks, as well as deposits, withdrawals, and account information.

If you are interested in wagering at Hawthorne Race Course or one of their Hawthorne Race Course Off-Track-Betting (OTB) locations, please follow the link below.

her husband or son must be a drug addict or a gambling mess.usually when someone in the immediate family has a problem, the others in the family try to make thier family problems everyone elses...so her husband or son, has a narcotic problem, or a gambling problem, so we have to stop everyone ...punish them, everyone else, casue thier lives are *** up..

dam shame

reminds me of a guy named jeff. whos father owned a prominent ford lincoln dealership on the north side.jeff was a complete *** up, a drug addict from norridge, was busted...so everyone that applied for a job at the ford dealer had to take drug tests, so the father could get some solace in making everyone else suffer cause he was a *** up father and his son was a complete waste.

same thing here with th ebitch that has to tattle, cause her family is a bunch of complete *** ups

Unfortunately the Illinois Racing Board has requested that we stop taking wagers from Illinois residents at this time. Starting Friday, January 18th, Illinois customers will no longer be able to wager through TwinSpires.com until further notice.

Your account will remain active with full access to racing information, live video, race replays, Brisnet handicapping information as well as deposits and withdrawals.

We apologize for the inconvenience as we truly appreciate serving your account wagering needs. We are hopeful that this situation in Illinois will be resolved soon and residents of Illinois, just like residents of other states will be allowed to wager on horse racing.

We will update you when there are more developments with this situation.

If you are interested in wagering at a Trackside OTB location, please click on the link below to find the location nearest you.

Our friends at Hawthorne Race Course invite all Xpressbet customers to place their bets at Hawthorne or at a Club Hawthorne OTB. As a token of their appreciation, Hawthorne would like to offer you a FREE Simulcast Program when you visit Hawthorne or a Club Hawthorne OTB.

ahhh...how about the people at Hawtrhorne can kiss my ass too..you think you can take my adw account away, and then and i am gonna drive 20 miles to that dump to bet..

That cover story says adw almost 30% of budget. Wow. With all those lobbyists in Springfield I would have thought someone would have been on top of this. The article also has Balmoral crying like usual. They're already taking adw fees. When are Illinois tbred people going to stop taking it up the a** from these standardbred people? Other states don't bend over like Illinois tbred people. Arlington should have night racing occasionally and Hawthorne should have it very often. They won't because of harness babies. Yet Hollywood, Los Al, and Cal X do it and on those nights they all thrive. Put Balmoral or Maywood on big screen between races and watch people bet. WIN WIN.

I tend to agree with that story, that if out-of-state ADW companies are taking wagers from Illinois residents on any race, not just in-state ones, they should be paying back a percentage to Illinois racing, just like a simulcast wager at an OTB. Those ADW companies did absolutely nothing to create and nurture the racing bettors of Illinois, and fought few if any of the legislative battles regarding parimutuel wagering. And we taxpayers are not funding an entire regulatory structure for the benefit of out-of-state computer wagering companies. Legal parimutuel wagering in Illinois, according to the Horse Racing Act, exists to benefit the State of Illinois.

The alternative would be to do something like New Jersey, and outlaw all ADWs except ONE that collects revenues solely for the benefit of this State's racing industry.

I was never at a nyc otb. Ive been to three handfuls of out of state tracks or satellite facilities. Never has there been surcharges on payouts. Why does Illinois need surcharges and no other state does? Why do they not takeout at the roulette table? Why is Illinois the only state that keeps taking from the players they so desperately need? Look at how many players the casino has taken away, not adw. Because of takeout and then the surcharge.

I was never at a nyc otb. Ive been to three handfuls of out of state tracks or satellite facilities. Never has there been take out on payouts. Why does Illinois need takeout and no other state does? Why do they not takeout at the roulette table? Why is Illinois the only state that keeps taking from the players they so desperately need? Look at how many players the casino has taken away, not adw. Because of takeout and then payout takeout.

The surcharge isn't required by law. It is allowed by law. The OTBs use it to pay the city taxes that the law requires them to pay to their host city in Illinois. They could pay the taxes themselves, out of their own %, but not sure what that would do to their already thin profitability. The takeout money collected at an OTB is already split up six ways to Sunday, and a big chunk of it flows directly out to the "host track" and that track's horsemen.

I don't know that OTBs in any other state have to turn over part of their handle to their host city as tax like Illinois requires.

What the hell the harness tracks do with their on-track surcharges, or how they justify that, I don't know. Same as Dick D. did when he had an on-track surcharge back in the 90's, I guess.

Thanks. What is the surcharge % for otb's? I know the adw "balmoral" surcharge is .0018%

I believe the OTBs keep 2.5% of whatever you win? (80% of total handle)

If you do the math, you'll soon discover it works out to approximately the same number as the 2% of handle tax the OTB has to pay out to city and county (1% of handle each.)

The ITW sites keep less, and only when they are not host track, but I don't think they're paying any extra city and county tax at all, so why they rip you off vs. full track payouts that way, who knows. "Because they can", probably.

But make no mistake, there is a definite conflict between the objectives of the owner of Twin Spires (and Arlington) to screw Illinois horsemen and other Illinois tracks as much as possible in order to to improve out-of-state corporate profits, vs. the objectives of Illinois tracks and horsemen, which is to funnel that money to Illinois racing.

Sounds to me as though they are ALL in bed together. Twin Spires (Arlington) AND Xpressbet (Hawthorne) Continued to do business as usual well after the ADW license expired.

That is neither here nor there as regards my statement that Twin Spires is out to screw Illinois horsemen. That's regarding their insistence on pulling as much money as possible out of Illinois via ADW while giving as little as possible (if any) back to the Illinois tracks and horsemen, and has been one of the major issues standing between Arlington and the ITHA, as well as holding up ADW legislation.

The other ADWs have historically been willing to cut Illinois tracks and horsemen a better deal than Twin Spires has, and I think even to this day they pay better than Twin Spires.